31.7.13

DIY | TieDye T-shirt |

For weeks my younger brother has been begging me to make him and his girlfriend some tie-dye t-shirts, and once I'd persuaded him to join me in going to the shop to pick out his colours we took a walk to the local Dunelm. During this walk (bearing in mind we're both dressed for summer) we we're both left drenched and cold after getting stuck in two/maybe three downpours and thunder storms...either way we made it there and back home with all our colours and our plain t-shirts (2 for £5 at ASDA). He left me to it as he went to work, which worked well for me as I got to do something fun to keep me entertained while I was alone for the afternoon (I also thought it would be a perfect blog post), I've now got completely stained purple hands while the t-shirts dry in my bedroom. Anyway, heres my attempt at a diy/how to tutorial post;

I've probably forgotten a few things that's needed, but those are the most 'need'!

I was making 5 t-shirts for both me and my brother, he was given the choice of colours & we came home with 6 different ones to use. Finding 6 separate containers for each wasn't easy.

(Dylon sachets can be found in most home-ware stores or craft shops)The Dylon sachets has very clear instructions of how to prepare the dye...although reading I needed over '6 litre's' for each small bucket/bowl I had, I slowly gave up on sticking to what I was told. Basically, I started filling the bucket with a little warm then adding the dye and some salt. After stirring this together, I then I started to fill the bucket with more warm water. pretty easy really!

Once your dye is ready, you prepare the t-shirt. Using a little water to wet the t-shirt (or that was the instruction I was first given) but it's easier in the long run to soak the t-shirt, I just ran it under the tap before wringing it dry! At this point, you then flatten the t-shirt on a smooth surface, choose the area which you want the swirly-ish part and pinch. Once you've pinched the section, start twisting the t-shirt to gather it together, it's meant to gather together into a twist circle (sort of) but you can do this in a way you want, it's all about experimenting. When it's all twisted, you need your elastic bands, firstly (the trickiest one...) you need to put the band around the outside before wrapping all over the t-shirt. This holds it all together and helps to block the colours and create some of the tie-dye effect.

Now you need your gloves as this part gets dirty (trust me, my hands are horribly dyed). For this part you simply need to place your t-shirt into your dye, for this I didn't want it to completely fall in and go one colour, so I held the t-shirt in place and pegged the t-shirt to the sides of my boxes (this was sometimes tricky). The instructions on the sachets for the dye say to stir for 15 minutes, then leave and occasionally stir for 45! After my first t-shirt I sort of gave up, although I left them around 45 minutes altogether for the most part after 15/20 minutes I switched the t-shirts into the different dyes of how I wanted them. For the most part, I just experimented and didn't know how this would turn out.

Finally, once I thought they'd set in the dye long enough I began ripping off the elastic bands (mainly in excitement) to see how the t-shirts had turned out! and yipee it was such a success, each t-shirt came out better than I expected and I'm so happy for it. To finish off the t-shirts I left them to dry over night & then washed them all individually on a half hour wash, just to make sure that the colour didn't run in the next wash...better to be safe than sorry! I really do hope that this makes some sense if you're wanting to do this yourself! I looked online so much before attempting this myself and could never really find anything that made any sense...so this is my simplest attempt at explaining.

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Sarah Lauren, 24 year old, media & counselling graduate. With a slight passion for photography, beauty & sharing my life online. If you would like to contact me for any reason, please feel free to email me at